


The Mess I Made

by mylittlesasa



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Carmilla - Freeform, Carmilla Season 2, Carmilla season 2 episode 22, F/F, Hollstein - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4629288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittlesasa/pseuds/mylittlesasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My take on what went down post-episode 22. The title is from Parachute’s song “The Mess I Made”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mess I Made

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know how to write angst or how to write in general so please be gentle with me. *All thoughts expressed are my own interpretation except for direct quotes from the show or the song “The Mess I Made”.

Carmilla waited until Laura shut the door of the bedroom they used to share before she crawled back under the floorboards. Mattie was already asleep, or pretending to be asleep, but Carmilla didn’t care enough to check. She sat down on the cold stone floor, trying to push down the suffocating feeling currently taking over her body, making it hard for her to breathe. Not that she needed to; vampiric constitution trumped basically every human weakness but it was a habit that she was used to. It helped her calm down. She desperately gasped for air while hugging her legs to her chest. She closed her eyes and tried not to let the memories of her time inside the blood coffin drown her.

 _You’re okay. Maman can’t hurt you now. You’re okay. You’re okay._ She kept repeating that to herself, thinking that maybe if she says it enough times, that she might actually start to believe it. She hugged her legs tighter in an attempt to physically suppress the tide wanting to burst out of her chest. Her eyes filled with tears and she clenched them tighter, not wanting to open up the floodgates. She needs to be strong.

Carmilla sat in complete silence, the world around her unaware of the war waging inside her head and in her chest. She fought hard; she wasn’t willing to give up that easily but the damp smell filling up her nostrils and the lack of light filtering through the cracks on the floorboards were not helping her case. She was feeling trapped again. She was back in that damn coffin. She was back in the dark and never ending despair. No, she was in her mother’s apartment. She was okay. She was fighting against herself and she didn’t know which side was winning.

Carmilla was so distracted by her own thoughts that she didn’t hear the person coming down the stairs, doing her best not to make any noise.

Laura tiptoed to the living room, clutching her yellow pillow in one hand and dragging her blanket with the other. She made her way to a spot on the floor, gently placing down her pillow on the ground. The floorboards made a little squeaking noise when she went to sit down and she held her breath, waiting for a sound, a reaction. Nothing came and she released the breath she was holding. Little did she know that Carmilla was sitting right below the spot on the floor she just sat on.

Laura rested her head on her yellow pillow. Her back lay flat on the floor, eyes staring up at the ceiling. She couldn’t stay in the bedroom.  _Their bedroom._ It was too dark, too quiet and too cold. The bed was far too big and smelled too much like  _her._ Like Carmilla. She tried for a few minutes, tossing and turning until she just decided to go downstairs.

Carmilla was pulled from her thoughts when the floor above her squeaked. She listened for another sound, but nothing came – nothing but the fluttering heartbeat that sounded so familiar to her. It was a sound that she could easily single out in a sea of people; a sound that she spent hours and hours memorizing; a sound that she could listen to, and want to listen to, forever. It was a sound that she would do anything just to keep it beating. It was music to her ears. It was the sound of home.

She was so accustomed to every thump of Laura’s heart that she didn’t have to think twice to know that it was Laura who made the squeaking noise above her. She raised her head to look at the floorboards. Why was Laura in the living room? She already said goodnight. She was supposed to go to sleep. So many questions sprang up in Carmilla’s mind. A few seconds passed and the sound got even closer, as if Laura’s heart was beating right against the floorboards.

_She’s lying on the floor._ The thought passed through Carmilla’s head. _Why is she on the floor? There is a perfectly nice bed upstairs. Hell, even a couch in the living room. Why did she choose the cold hard wooden floor to lie on?_

A forbidden thought entered Carmilla’s mind.

_Maybe she wants to be close to me._

No, she can’t think like that. Just because Laura said that she missed her like someone cut a hole in her doesn’t mean that she wants to be close to Carmilla. Maybe she was just too scared to sleep alone in the bedroom. Or maybe she just wanted to be here in case any of Vordenberg’s minions decided to trespass to see if any vampires are staying here. Yeah, that seems right. That seemed like a rational reason. It was better to think that way rather than the other, more painful option. Because even if Laura wanted to be close to her, what was Carmilla supposed to do about it? Was she supposed to go up there to comfort Laura? She had no right. Laura wasn’t hers, but at the same time she was.

Laura isn’t hers and that thought pained Carmilla more than anything. She was brought back to their earlier conversation.

Oh, how Carmilla craved to feel Laura’s lips against her own again. It took all of her strength to not grab her right then and there and capture her perfect lips between her own pair. Her hands ached with the phantom feeling of Laura’s smooth skin beneath her palms; flexing, clenching, relaxing, as Carmilla explored Laura’s body like it was a new world she had never seen before. She wanted nothing more than to cradle Laura’s face between her hands and look into those deep, beautiful brown eyes and to get lost in them.

She wonders; if she would’ve called out Laura’s name, would it have made her stay? Would it have made Laura run back into her arms? Carmilla knows otherwise but the idea that it might have been a possibility made Carmilla’s heart clench.

Carmilla knows it was selfish of her to want Laura all to herself. She knows it was selfish of her to only want to protect Laura. She understands that the kind of love she has to give is not the kind of love that Laura wants. Laura wanted Carmilla to do what was right because it’s the right thing to do, not because of any selfish reasons.

Carmilla wished that she wasn’t so selfish, but centuries of pain and hardships made her the creature that she was today.

So instead of being selfish again, Carmilla stayed in her position. She sat there, listening to the constant thumping of Laura’s heart and thinking about how things got so messed up. She thought about the tiny girl lying on the floor above her and how when she turned and walked away with her heart, she went with Carmilla’s heart in tow.

Meanwhile, Laura struggled to tame her thoughts enough to let her slip into a peaceful slumber. She knew it was a lost cause; she hasn’t had proper sleep in a while, what with all the craziness that has been happening on campus. The Anglerfish, Mattie, and then Vordenberg… And of course, there’s Carmilla. Laura knew that there were so many more important and pressing matters to worry about but just for tonight, she let her mind focus on her vampire ex-girlfriend.

Laura thought about everything that Carmilla confessed to her tonight as she lay down on the cold, hard, unforgiving wooden floor of the Dean’s apartment. She closed her eyes and pictured the face of the girl who bared her soul to her. She saw in her head the eyes of the girl who constantly saved her – those eyes that looked at her like she was her world. She imagined how those eyes that were always so cold and distant when they stared at other people filled with tears and showed just how vulnerable the seemingly indestructible vampire was. She thought of how she wanted to reach out and wipe those tears away; how badly she wanted to utter the words that would fix the mess she created. She thought of all the second chances with Carm that she passed up because she had to think about the greater good.

She wanted to speak up; to proudly claim that her head’s to blame for all her heart’s mistakes. She wished that things were different, simpler. She wished that she could ask the girl to run away with her and forget about the world but that’s not how Laura Hollis is. She is a woman of the people. Laura was the kind of girl who fought for justice and would stop at nothing to find the answers to her questions. She had the makings of a great journalist.

Laura’s head was spinning and she felt like the ground beneath her would fall and she would fall right along with it. She sort of wished that it would, then maybe all of these problems would disappear and she wouldn’t have to worry anymore.

 _You and no one else._ The words replayed in her mind, making her heart pound like a hammer to a nail. How sweet the words sounded in her ears and it made her want to say the words that would mend her relationship with Carm. But instead, she walked away. She turned her back to the girl who loved her so much that she betrayed her sister’s secret.

_She loves me, but why isn’t it enough?_

She knew why. She blames all of those books and movies for making her believe in that great love. The kind of love that saved; the kind of love that fit like a key into a lock.

Deep down, Laura knew she was being selfish for wanting Carmilla to be better. She knew that she should accept Carmilla for who she is, flaws and all. She knew that Carmilla already changed so much for her but it still wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough because she wanted Carmilla to be doing the things that she did because it was the right thing to do, not just because Laura wanted her to do it. She needed Carmilla to be the kind of person that fights for the greater good. But as Carmilla said, she doesn’t have any of that to give to Laura. And that’s why Laura walked away.

Laura only realized that her eyes were already filled with tears after the first drop fell and ran down the side of her head and into her hair. She didn’t wipe it away. She was too tired to wipe it away so instead, she just let them fall. She shifted to her side and let the tears fall on the floor. Laura pressed the palm of her left hand to the ground, letting the coolness leech away the warmth radiating off of her hand. She pressed her hand to the floorboards, imagining that the gesture brought her closer to the only girl she wanted to comfort her at this very moment. She closed her eyes and imagined that the blanket wrapped around her body providing warmth were the arms of the person who always made her feel safe – the arms of the person who she called _home_.

Under the floorboards, Carmilla was also struggling with the need to be closer to the tiny girl she loved. Her tears were falling freely now, flooding her eyes and blurring her vision. It was taking everything in her to not run up there and put her arms around Laura; to comfort her and tell her that everything will be alright. All she wanted in that moment was to be back in those arms that have become her home. She knew that she can’t, so she settled for pressing her right hand against the floorboards above her head. It wasn’t enough but it was all she allowed herself to do to become nearer to the only person she has ever loved in more than a century.

Carmilla and Laura stayed like that for hours, the floor separating their splayed hands, until sleep took them and brought them to a world where they could be together again.

**Author's Note:**

> Tweet me what you think @mattiebelmonde or send me an ask on Tumblr: mylittlesasa.tumblr.com


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